Straight from the rock’n'roll hotbed of High Wycombe, here come Young Guns with an EP called Mirrors which, so the accompanying piece of paper says, is “a brief blast of promise” that “serves as a ringing statement of intent”. In the absence of further explanation, I’m going to have to assume after giving it a few listens that their intent is business as usual.
Don’t get me wrong: Mirrors is pretty passable, with good chunky production (from those chaps what was in Sikth, apparently) supporting songs that fall somewhere between the riffy but accessible pop-metal of Funeral For My Chemical Valentine and the soaring-chorus fists-in-the-air epicisms of Lostprophets and their oh-so-numerous imitators.
And therein lies the problem; the press release accompanying Mirrors is keen to point out the healthy state of the British ‘scene’, but the list of producers and remixers associated with the band reveals that the British scene is a pretty incestuous thing in some respects. Sure, it’s good to have bands helping each other out, but close communities are prone to a form of stylistic groupthink, and Young Guns represent what export-grade British rock sounds like right now. Mirrors isn’t the next big thing, it’s the last big thing.
And the problem is that the market’s saturated with this stuff, to the point that it’s almost impossible to do something with it that doesn’t sound derivative. Sure, people are still buying this stuff and going to the shows, but there’s already too many sizeable fish in that particular pond. If Young Guns wanted to convince me they have a future as market leaders, they’d need to come across sounding different, convention-defying, unusual. And Mirrors, while dripping with competence and hard work, is another plateful of the British pop-metal sound I’ve been hearing for the last seven or eight years.
Perhaps I’ll be proved wrong, but I suspect Young Guns have missed the boat for the big time with this sound; perhaps their next release will break the mould of Mirrors. Here’s hoping they avoid the temptations of crunk or crabcore, eh?
Posted in Music reviews | 2 Comments »
Tags: emo, metal, Mirrors, pop, post-hardcore, Young Guns
July 9th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
That’s a shame, I rather enjoyed their pre-debut EP thingy.
Still early days though, I guess.
January 5th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
I completely disagree with you! Young guns are not a typical band, at all! I feel their riffs grab you unlike most of the new british bands out there!
There are, and i agree with you on this one, far too many of these typical bands who try to copy bands from Lostprophets to the pop-punk melodies of bands like Fall Out Boy. But i do not feel Young Guns carry this burden of a typical band. Not only is Gustav an amazing singer with a very good vocal range, the rest of the band are all very good at their instruments. Its the first new band i have listened to in a while that the bassist sounds like a bassist, and not just a guitar player who wasn’t as good! And as for the two guitarists, the riffs, as simple as they are, are pulled off very well with some great chord progressions. The solo’s are simplistic yet suit the songs perfectly. Take for example, “There Will Be Rain”. The continuing solo over the chords suit very well and isn’t very common amoung new bands, especially on their debut EP. But in my opinion, i’d listen to the drummer alone, the man has amazing and pulls off some quality footwork too.
All in all, It is only Young Guns first EP, and i believe they have made a great start and could very well, after this impressive start, follow in the footsteps of big names out there. Also having checked out their new single “Winter Kiss”, it shows these guys can make it big, i can see good things come of Young Guns in the future.